Lenny Skutnik
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Photo: Frank Johnston, The Washington Post
Martin L. (Lenny) Skutnik III is celebrated for an act of heroism he performed following the crash of Air Florida Flight 90 on January 13, 1982. He dove into an icy river and saved the life of an airline passenger. For this act he was commended by U.S. President Ronald Reagan during the annual State of the Union speech that was held later in the month. He was the first in what has become an annual tradition of notable people being invited to sit in the President's box at the State of the Union address.
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[edit] Air Florida Flight 90
January 13, 1982, had brought one of the worst blizzards in Washington history. At 3:59 p.m. EST, Air Florida Flight 90 was cleared for takeoff and began rumbling down the runway. But ice on its wings hampered its lift. The aircraft - a twin-engine Boeing 737 - finally took off but was unable to gain altitude. At 4:01 p.m. it crashed into the Rochambeau span of the 14th Street Bridge complex. The aircraft broke apart on impact and sank through an inch of ice into the Potomac River. The National Transportation Safety Board later attributed the crash to the crew's failure to properly de-ice the aircraft.
The crash scene was almost immediately televised due to the close proximity of the site to Washington news bureaus, but viewers at first saw only a hole in the ice. All but the tail section had became submerged. Only five of the 83 passengers survived the crash.
News cameramen and viewers watched helplessly. Suddenly hope arrived in the form of a park police helicopter, trailing a lifeline reaching to the outstretched arms of the victims in the water below. At approximately 4:20 p.m., Eagle 1, a United States Park Police Bell 206 Jetranger helicopter, N2PP, based at Anacostia Park in Washington, D.C., arrived and at great risk assisted the survivors, at one time getting so close to the ice-clogged river that the helicopter's skids went beneath the surface of the water.
As the helicopter crew lowered a line to the survivors for towing them to shore, one survivor, later identified as Arland D. Williams Jr., was still attached to part of the plane. He repeatedly passed the line to others. After lifting and towing two badly injured passengers to shore one at a time, when the helicopter returned, an attempt was made to use two lines to haul three more, and two fell back into the icy water.
By then one of the survivors, Priscilla Tirado, was too weak to grab the line, so a bystander, 28-year-old government office assistant Lenny Skutnik, stripped off his coat and boots and, in short sleeves, dove into the icy water and swam out to assist her. The helicopter then proceeded to where the Tirado survivor had fallen, and paramedic Melvin E. (Gene) Windsor dropped from the safety of the helicopter into the water to attach a line to her. By the time the helicopter crew could return for Williams, he and the airplane's tail section had disappeared beneath the icy surface. His body and those of the other occupants were recovered later.
Skutnik received the United States Coast Guard's Gold Lifesaving Medal and the Carnegie Hero Fund Medal for his efforts.
[edit] State of the Union speech
Lenny Skutnik was invited to attend the speech, which was held thirteen days later. He sat next to the First Lady Nancy Reagan as the guest of President Ronald Reagan, who said,
| “ | Just two weeks ago, in the midst of a terrible tragedy on the Potomac, we saw again the spirit of American heroism at its finest the heroism of dedicated rescue workers saving crash victims from icy waters.
And we saw the heroism of one of our young Government employees, Lenny Skutnik, who, when he saw a woman lose her grip on the helicopter line, dived into the water and dragged her to safety. |
” |
Since then, others who are invited into the Presidential gallery and honored in the speech have been known among the Washington press corps as Lenny Skutniks. The Presidential gallery is sometimes referred to as The Heroes' Gallery.
[edit] List of "Lenny Skutniks"
- 1982
- Lenny Skutnik was indicated as an example of the American ideal in his first Address. Immediately before noting Skutnik, Reagan first pointed out Jeremiah Denton, a Senator who had formerly been held as a prisoner of war in Vietnam.
- 1984
- Reagan pointed to Sergeant Stephen Trujillo, a medic during the Invasion of Grenada in October 1983.
- 1999
- Sammy Sosa, a right fielder in Major League Baseball who had just beaten Roger Maris' home run record. Rosa Parks was also pointed out, as an icon of the U.S. civil rights movement.
- 2000
- Tom Mauser, father of Columbine victim Daniel Mauser and anti-Gun Advocate, Lloyd Bentsen, former United States Senator from Texas and former Treasury Secretary, Tipper Gore, then-second lady of the U.S, Carlos Rosas, a father from Minnesota, Captain John Cherrey, airman who served during the Kosovo Conflict, William Cohen and Janet Cohen, then Secretary of Defense, and his wife were all mentioned by Bill Clinton
- 2004
- Adnan Pachachi, the President of the Iraqi Governing Council, was pointed to by George W. Bush.
- 2007
- Four individuals were pointed to in the heroes box: Dikembe Mutombo, a basketball player originally from the Democratic Republic of the Congo who had recently helped fund the building of a hospital in Kinshasa; Wesley Autrey, a New York City construction worker who saved a man who had fallen onto subway tracks; Julie Aigner-Clark, creator of the Baby Einstein toy line; and Sergeant Tommy Riemann, injured in Operation Iraqi Freedom.
